Nationally, the media has a keen interest in identifying and analyzing the extent to which the Tea Party movement might be a factor in November's elections for U.S. Congress.

At Ballotpedia, we'll be collecting some statistics and information to assess whether and where Tea Party activists are getting involved electorally at the more local level of state legislative elections. Over 6,100 state senate and state house seats are up for grabs on November 2 in 46 states.

Partisan composition

The Tea Party movement is for the most part officially non-partisan. That said, when it comes to electoral politics, those engaged in the Tea Party movement tend to favor Republicans over Democrats.

Heading into the November 2 elections, the Democratic Party holds a commanding lead in state houses in the 88 legislative chambers that hold elections in 2010. 52 of the 88 chambers, or nearly 60% of them, currently have a Democratic majority, while 33 of them have a Republican majority. (Two chambers have an exactly equal number of Democrats and Republicans and one is officially non-partisan.)

Research participation

If you have questions about participating in the survey, or if you have additional information to share that does not fit within the survey format, we'd love to hear from you. Please send our research team, headed up by Jackie Larkin, an email.